Newsreel Asia

4 days ago | newsreel.asia | Vishal Arora

Flooding in northeast India has long been treated as an unavoidable natural disaster – a view convenient for those in power, as it conceals the fact that the annual devastation is not inevitable. On June 3, the death toll from rain-related disasters across the eight northeastern States rose to 47 – a loss that could have been prevented.

5 days ago | newsreel.asia | Vishal Arora

Why don’t we often feel moved, angry or responsible when we read about tragedies in the news? The recent death of a 10-year-old Dalit girl from Bihar, raped and left in critical condition in an ambulance, may have saddened us for a moment, but not enough to make us act—not even to express outrage online. But this wasn’t the case after the 2012 Nirbhaya Delhi gang rape. Let’s turn to psychology to understand what makes us pick and choose whose suffering we mourn.

6 days ago | newsreel.asia | Vishal Arora

The Indian public, and even members of Parliament, first learned about the Indian Air Force’s losses during the early phase of Operation Sindoor through foreign media reports quoting Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on May 31. This confirms that the information about the initial setbacks is not classified on grounds of national security. Why, then, has the central government not provided a clear explanation of what transpired during those four days of armed conflict?

1 week ago | newsreel.asia | Vishal Arora

A 22-year-old law student in Pune has been charged with allegedly offending religious sentiments after making derogatory remarks about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Whatever the merits of the case, the incident raises an important question: should the right to free speech include the right to criticise religion—one’s own or someone else’s? Let’s set aside the question of whether this woman’s case is justified, and instead look at the larger context in which such charges arise.

1 week ago | newsreel.asia | Vishal Arora

The Assam government’s decision to issue arms licences to “indigenous” residents in remote areas, under the pretext of protection from “illegal immigrants,” marks a retreat from the state’s core responsibility to ensure public security. It also legitimises exclusion and replaces public trust and institutional justice with a politics rooted in fear.